This was what happened shortly after the homily of Saint Pope John Paul II in 1993 as reported by the New York Times:
Bombings Laid to Mafia War on Italy and Church
By JOHN TAGLIABUE,
Published: July 15, 1994
Published: July 15, 1994
During a
visit to Sicily in May 1993, Pope John Paul II urged Roman Catholics,
who make up the vast majority of Sicily's five million people, to rise
up against the Mafia.
Mr. Coiro said the Pope's appeals were evidently viewed by the Mafia as breaching a kind of "non-belligerence accord" between Mafia and church. He said that in an apparent reprisal last September, the Rev. Giuseppe Puglisi, a priest in Palermo who was an outspoken opponent of organized crime, was shot and killed in what investigators believe was a Mafia operation.
From May to August 1993, five car bomb attacks in Rome, Florence and Milan left 10 people dead and dozens wounded. In addition to the Uffizi, the targets were two venerable Roman churches, San Giovanni in Laterano and San Giorgio in Velabro, and a modern-art gallery in Milan. A powerful bomb also exploded near the home of a television talk-show host, Maurizio Costanzo, a vocal Mafia opponent. Mr. Costanzo escaped unharmed.
The investigators accused Mr. Frabetti and Mr. Scarano of placing the bombs that exploded in Rome last July 27, causing widespread damage to San Giorgio and the Lateran basilica and wounding dozens of people.
Mr. Coiro said the Pope's appeals were evidently viewed by the Mafia as breaching a kind of "non-belligerence accord" between Mafia and church. He said that in an apparent reprisal last September, the Rev. Giuseppe Puglisi, a priest in Palermo who was an outspoken opponent of organized crime, was shot and killed in what investigators believe was a Mafia operation.
From May to August 1993, five car bomb attacks in Rome, Florence and Milan left 10 people dead and dozens wounded. In addition to the Uffizi, the targets were two venerable Roman churches, San Giovanni in Laterano and San Giorgio in Velabro, and a modern-art gallery in Milan. A powerful bomb also exploded near the home of a television talk-show host, Maurizio Costanzo, a vocal Mafia opponent. Mr. Costanzo escaped unharmed.
The investigators accused Mr. Frabetti and Mr. Scarano of placing the bombs that exploded in Rome last July 27, causing widespread damage to San Giorgio and the Lateran basilica and wounding dozens of people.
The magistrates presented a detailed picture of the way large amounts of explosives were moved about the country together with illegal drug shipments, a Mafia specialty, and concealed for months in apartments controlled by Mafia figures. The investigators described how the explosives were delivered by truck at regular intervals to a tenement building on the Via Ostiense in Rome, and hidden under gravel in the building's courtyard.
The main breaks in the case, the investigators said, came from ordinary citizens who volunteered observations of suspect activity, from Mafia turncoats and from telephone taps in apartments and jail cells. But the investigators were reluctant to reveal details, for fear of jeopardizing the ongoing investigations.
The car bomb at the Uffizi, which killed five people, exploded on May 27, 1993, blowing out skylights and windows and damaging paintings. Restoration work is continuing, though large areas have been restored and reopened to the public.
At a news conference, the investigators said today that the order for the car bombs had been issued by the Mafia to strike at the Government, at the Roman Catholic Church and at media figures who opposed the Mafia, like Mr. Costanzo.
3 comments:
The only Italian politician who successfully took on the mafia was Benito Mussolini. His war on the mafia is rightly regarded as one of the positive achievements of the Fascist regime, and some of the mafia bosses were forced to emigrate and continue their activities in New York.
After Mussolini's fall the mafia took the opportunity to re-establish itself.
Pope St. John Paul was a fearless defender of the one true Faith, that's why the mafia retaliated. I hardly think the mob is frightened or care what a guy who wears a clown nose has to say. They are probably just as scandalized by a pope who says and does the outrageous things Francis has done. They probably want to go after the cardinals who stuck us with him.
I do recall those events and was mindful of them when I read about Pope Francis' homily. Id think he means business and that it is going to go somewhere. The administration of it will be up to the bishops and that will be the problem. IIRC the introduction to Blatty's 'Exorcist' was the transcript of a Mafia testimony. They are very serious.
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